Helen Cresswell - The Bagthorpe Saga - Ordinary Jack

“I thought that was it,” said Jack.

“That,” explained Uncle Parker, “was for you to go round doing a few times during the day. Do it while several people are around, if you can, and do it about twice this morning and the same this afternoon. Make sure they get the message.”

“The awful thing would be if I laughed,” Jack said.

“If you laugh,” said Uncle Parker sternly, “I wash my hands of you. Clear?”

“Clear,” Jack said. “There is one thing. Could Zero be in on it as well?”

Uncle Parker, floored, looked at Zero lying slumped by Jack’s feet as if he were sculpted in dough.

“Now listen,” he said, “I’ll take you on, because by and large I think you’re promising material. I think I’ll make something of you. But that hound’s another matter.”

“Don’t call him an h-o-u-n-d,” pleaded Jack. He spelled the word out because he was pretty sure that Zero, being so simple in other ways, would almost certainly not understand. “Please. Father does it all the time. It undermines his confidence. And he’s in a terrible state after last night.”

“We’re all in a terrible state after last night,” said Uncle Parker. “And some of us didn’t do double somersaults with burning tablecloths on our heads.”

“You would,” said Jack, “if you’d been under there, in his position.”

“We won’t go into that,” said Uncle Parker. “All I’m saying is that any question of that dog having Visions is out. Come to think –” he eyed Zero speculatively – “that’s not quite right. Come to think, he goes round half the time looking as if he’s having Visions. You could do worse than study him.”

“Hear that?” Jack, delighted, bent and patted him. “Hear that, Zero? Good old boy!”

Zero wagged his tail lethargically.

“I’m glad you said that,” Jack told Uncle Parker. “It’s cheered him up no end.”

“So – ready for another note.” Uncle Parker changed the subject. “Write ‘Vision One’ and underline.”

Jack obeyed.

“Now write what I dictate.”

Jack poised his felt-tip ready.

“Write: ‘I see … I see … I see a Lavender Man who Bears Tidings.’”

Jack let his pen drop.

“Write what ?” he said incredulously.

“Never mind that. You write it down. ‘I see dot dot dot, I see dot dot dot, I see a Lavender Man who Bears Tidings.’”

Jack wrote it down in a fog.

“Now read it back to me.”

Uncle Parker listened.

“You don’t say dot dot dot,” he explained patiently. “Those are to indicate pregnant pauses. I see … pause, I see … pause … Get it?”

“I get it.” Jack altered his dot dot dots to ‘…’

“Now say it,” ordered Uncle Parker. “With feeling.”

Jack stood up.

“I don’t think I want to go on with this,” he said.

“Sit down,” said Uncle Parker.

Jack sat down.

“I know. I know it’s a damn-fool thing to say,” Uncle Parker said.

“It certainly is,” said Jack with feeling. “I can’t say it. I’ve never said anything like it in my life.”

“Precisely. You take the point exactly. You have never said anything like it in your life. And so when you do say it, around tea-time, after spending most of the day seeing Visions past people’s ears, it’s going to get noticed.”

“It certainly is,” said Jack again. “They’ll probably send for the doctor.”

“They won’t,” said Uncle Parker. “But if they do, make sure you look past his ear as well. Do the Vision stuff on him like we practised. Might even help if they do call for a medical opinion.”

“Actually,” Jack said, “I think I might be going to go mad. What’s it all about? What’s all this about Lavender Men and Bearing?”

“Aha!” Uncle Parker was triumphant again. “ That’s where they start sitting up and taking notice. That’s where I come in.”

“It is?”

“Last week,” explained Uncle Parker, “unbeknownst to your Aunt Celia, unbeknownst, in fact, to anyone in the world except myself, a tailor in the West End and possibly my bank manager, I purchased, after much deliberation, a lavender suit.”

“A suit made of lavender?”

“A lavender- coloured suit, Jack, so far as I can describe it.”

“Whatever for?”

“You’re a bit young to understand,” Uncle Parker told him. “I bought it because – I think because – I felt I wasn’t quite living up to your Aunt Celia’s ideal. I felt that if I took to wearing a lavender suit now and again, she would see in me the man she once hoped I was.”

“Oh.” Jack was as nonplussed as he had ever been in his life.

“Listen carefully. At around half-past six, I shall whip up your drive and emerge wearing the aforesaid lavender suit. I shall also bear tidings. I shall have, in other words, news for you.”

“What news?”

“I don’t think I should tell you that,” said Uncle Parker. “If I do, I think it will be hard for you to act surprised when I tell you tonight, so it’ll be better if you actually don’t know. No offence. But you see what I mean.”

“I wish I did,” said Jack.

“Now look. It’s all absolutely straightforward. You’ve got it all written down. One – you act Mysterious. Right?”

“Right.”

“Two, you come out, round about tea-time, with Vision One. You say, ‘I see dot dot dot I see dot dot dot et cetera.’ Right?”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s it, then. That’s all there is to it. Just leave the rest to me. By seven o’clock tonight, I promise you, you’ll be Number One Attraction in the Bagthorpe ménage. Your wildest dream come true.”

“Uncle Parker …”

“Well?”

“I think – yes, look! There is – there’s smoke coming out of your house.”

Uncle Parker turned towards The Knoll. From the window of one of the upper rooms was issuing, undeniably, a cloud of smoke.

“My God!” exclaimed Uncle Parker. “It’s Daisy again!”

He leapt up and was off.

“You get back!” he shouted. “You get back and make out you’ve never set eyes on me since last night. Get back quick!”

He was running, not jogging.

“And act natural!” His parting words floated out as he disappeared into the smouldering Knoll.

“Come on, Zero.”

Jack started off back home. It was still only just past seven. He stuffed the notebook deep in the pocket of his jeans.

“Act natural,” he repeated to himself. Then, uncertainly, “Act Mysterious. Stage One, Act Mysterious.”

It was all very confusing.

The first thing Jack did when he got home was to get Vision One to materialise. He found all its ingredients except for the mushrooms, and set about frying them. No one else was down yet, but some of them were up because he could hear the far-off notes of an oboe and also from time to time a bump which was probably Mrs Bagthorpe unwinding herself from a Plough Posture. She had only recently taken up Yoga and was not very good at it but said she felt calmer already. She said she had felt calmer since the very first lesson when they had spent the whole hour just breathing. Jack had not noticed any real change. She certainly had not acted calm at Grandma’s Birthday Party, he reflected. She had been in a fair lather even before the tablecloth took off.

He sat at the table with his fry-up and cut off all the bacon rinds to give Zero. He was just feeding them to him when the kitchen door opened and in came Mrs Fosdyke.

“Here!” she said sharply, without preliminaries. “No feeding at table. You know as well as I do.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot.”